


The Words of a Friend

by toushindai (WallofIllusion)



Category: Baccano!
Genre: All-Powerful Beings Inconvenienced By Human Emotions Is My Jam, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-02
Updated: 2017-12-02
Packaged: 2019-02-09 14:46:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,978
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12890166
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WallofIllusion/pseuds/toushindai
Summary: Ronny and Maiza discuss immortality with Molsa, and then with each other.for Baccano! Week 2017 Day 7: Bonds.





	The Words of a Friend

**Author's Note:**

> About fifteen years pre-series–-this is shortly after Ronny and Maiza join the Martillos, well before they’ve achieved any particular status.  
> Title may change if I can think of something that's not fucking stupid.

The firefight was over almost as quickly as it had begun.

To be fair to the assailants, Ronny supposed, they couldn’t have known what they were up against. Sure, it had been unimaginably stupid of them to burst into the restaurant before it opened, given that it was widely known to be under the control of the Martillo Family, but to encounter the four they found themselves up against was pure bad luck. Two no-name thugs could hardly be expected to stand a chance against the _capo societa_ , the _primo voto_ , a two-hundred-year-old Immortal, and… well, Ronny himself.

In the end, it amounted to little more than a scuffle. The only one who’d actually been _shot_ was Maiza, who’d leapt forward when the assailants had first appeared and taken a bullet meant for Molsa. Out of the corner of his eye, Ronny watched Maiza’s shoulder push the bullet out again as he regenerated. Maiza caught the bullet in the opposite hand, sending a wry glance Ronny’s way when he caught him looking. For all the suffering that immortality had caused him, Maiza was rarely reluctant to take advantage of its benefits. But no matter.

As Yaguruma and Ronny kicked the two assailants into a corner, Maiza slipped the bullet discreetly into his pocket. Just in time: Molsa hurried across the room to him.

“Maiza!” he cried. “Are you all right?”

Maiza smiled to reassure the _capo societa_ and spread his arms. “I’m fine. Not a scratch on me,” he said. “The bullet must have missed.”

“What?”

Molsa stopped abruptly, confusion obvious on his face as he looked Maiza over. There was (naturally) no blood on Maiza’s clothing, but—

“But I saw it hit you,” Molsa protested. “I saw the blood.” He walked forward again, clasping Maiza’s shoulders and running his eyes down Maiza’s body, his brow furrowed. “I saw the blood…” he repeated, less sure now. He looked at the wall behind Maiza, but there was no blood spray there, either.

Maiza shrugged. “There was a lot happening at once. Perhaps you saw blood from something else?”

He was, apparently, committed to the deception. Ronny nodded respectfully to Yaguruma and then made his way over to the other two men.

“You’ve got a bullet hole in your jacket, Maiza,” he said conversationally, his voice quiet.

Maiza clapped his hand over the irrefutable evidence and sent a baffled, resentful glance Ronny’s way. But when Molsa pulled on his wrist, he let his hand be moved away so that Molsa could see the hole for himself. The _capo societa_ ’s eyes narrowed in confusion and he looked between Maiza and Ronny for an explanation. Ronny kept his eyes on Maiza. Maiza didn’t speak.

Finally, Molsa sighed.

“Why don’t Yaguruma and I take care of these two idiots before they wake up,” he said evenly, “and when I get back, I hope one of you will be ready to explain what’s going on.”

For all the mildness of his words, it was obvious that they constituted an order. Ronny and Maiza inclined their heads and then watched their superiors go.  

Once they were gone, Maiza turned to Ronny, the panic he’d been stifling now obvious on his face.

“Ronny, we can’t tell him.”

“Why not?”

Ronny wasn’t _quite_ playing dumb. He understood Maiza’s dislike of immortality well, and would have seen Maiza’s fear in his face even if he hadn’t been able to sense it vibrating off of him in waves. But he didn’t understand why Maiza thought it best to keep this secret.

“Don Martillo isn’t immortal and has no connection to Szilard. And given that our bodies will make us an asset to the Martillos, I doubt he’ll be inclined to spread any rumors.”

Maiza offered no counterargument, but the worry hadn’t left his eyes. He fiddled absently with the bullet hole in his jacket.

Ronny shrugged. “Besides, if you’re going to keep leaping in front of bullets—which is admirable, and has probably endeared you to the _capo societa_ already—you can’t possibly hope to keep the secret forever. The sooner we reveal it, the less awkward it will be to apologize for concealing it thus far.”

“It wouldn’t cost _you_ any effort to keep it concealed,” Maiza murmured, averting his gaze. He was fully aware that Ronny could have repaired the bullet hole instead of pointing it out.

But Ronny only shrugged. “I don’t feel like it,” he said plainly, and nothing more.

Maiza grimaced at his bluntness. “Capricious bastard…”

“I am. I thought you knew this already? Well, no matter.” Ronny turned his awareness briefly outside, where Molsa was leaving the assailants in Yaguruma’s hands. “It looks like the don will be back momentarily. Would you like to demonstrate, or should I?”

“You do it,” Maiza answered, still not looking his way. Ah, he was genuinely angry. That was unfortunate, but no matter; Molsa Martillo was a reasonable man, and it would do Maiza good to have more than one person he could trust in his life. He was too cautious by far.

Molsa returned a minute later and gestured for Ronny and Maiza to sit down with him at one of the tables.

“To review,” he said, “we were discussing how Maiza wound up with a bullet hole in his jacket, but not in his body. Which one of you is going to explain?”

“Sir.”

Ronny gestured for Molsa’s attention and, once he had it, took out his knife. He sliced down his left palm carelessly. The pain was not particularly troublesome, but Molsa started.

“Ronny?!”

Without speaking, Ronny held up his blade so that its red-dyed edge caught the light. Seconds later, blood peeled itself off the knife and out of the fibers of his shirt and retreated into the cut. The wound closed, and Ronny smiled thinly at his _capo societa_.

“ _Voila_.”

The elderly man stared at him, his eyes wide. Then he looked over at Maiza as if to ask whether he had seen that, too. Maiza answered with one of his wincing smiles.

Finally, Molsa found his voice. “What am I seeing?” he asked, looking between the two men.

It was Ronny who spoke up once more.

“Maiza and I are immortal,” he said without flourish, though a smile decorated his lips. “Immune to both injury and aging. We have been remiss in not mentioning it earlier, but I hope you understand our desire to keep this relatively secret.”

Molsa nodded very slightly, his eyes narrowing as the wheels in his brain turned methodically. He was an even thinker—bold when he needed to be, but never careless. That tendency had empowered him to carve out this territory in Manhattan of all places, and it was what had impressed Ronny about him.

“You don’t age,” Molsa said. “You must be older than you appear, then.”

“Maiza’s two hundred and… twenty-seven, was it?” Ronny answered, turning towards Maiza for confirmation. But Maiza didn’t even nod. He sat motionless, hands clasped tightly in front of him, refusing to look at Ronny. No matter. “And I myself am well over two thousand.”

“I see.” Molsa remained remarkably calm in spite of what he was being told. He folded his arms and leaned back in the chair; it creaked with the movement. “And what do you want with the Martillos?”

“What do you mean?”

“If you’re some kind of vampires, come to suck the life out of the Family, we’re going to have a problem.”

The gleam in Molsa’s eyes was a protective one; he was willing to fight an “Immortal” if it meant protecting his men. Ronny’s lips curved in a smirk, impressed at the old man’s guts. “Nothing like that,” he assured him. “Maiza’s completely human.”

Or close enough, anyway. The difference was minor enough to be negligible in Ronny’s eyes but great enough that Maiza usually would have contested it. Now he still remained silent, and Molsa’s next question came too quickly for Ronny to discern why.

“Maiza’s human, you say? What does that make you, Ronny?”

Ronny cast his gaze across the room. Some ten feet away, a broken chair lay in a heap; it had met its end against the head of one of the thugs from earlier. He nodded to direct Molsa’s attention towards it. Then, once he was sure that Molsa was watching, he repaired it with a thought.

Again Molsa responded with only a quiet raise of an eyebrow as the impossible happened before his eyes. “That doesn’t _quite_ answer the question of what you are,” he challenged.

Ronny shrugged, the corner of his mouth lifting in a crooked smirk. “I’ve been called a demon as of late,” he answered. “But I lack the traditional interest in hellfire and damnation.”

“What _do_ you want, then? You never answered that.”

Ronny answered his gaze without wavering. “I’m just after a good time… which the Martillos have been gracious enough to provide these past few months.”

“Hah!” At last, Molsa cracked a smile. “Well, I’m glad you’re not here to suck out our blood. I think I could get used to having an Immortal or two in the Family.”

“Thank you, sir.”

Ronny was satisfied, bordering on smug. He glanced over at Maiza, exuding an air of _See, I told you there was nothing to worry about_ , but Maiza’s eyes were locked onto a knothole in the table. His fear had receded, but it wasn’t gone. Ronny frowned inwardly, careful not to let the expression show on his face. But before he could figure out how to cheer his pessimistic friend up, Molsa spoke one more time.

“I don’t suppose that immortality of yours is something you can pass on to others?”

Ah.

Suddenly Maiza’s heart was racing again, beating so fast against the air that Ronny thought even Molsa must have been able to feel it. This was what Maiza had been afraid of. This was why he’d wanted to keep this secret. And by bizarre coincidence, Molsa had asked his question to two of only a very few people in the whole world who could answer it in the affirmative.

Ronny’s mind went into overdrive, trying to calculate the best response. The easiest solution would be to lie, to claim that neither of them knew how to pass on immortality—but in his short time with the Martillos, he had already picked up enough loyalty that lying to the _capo societa_ did not appeal to him. How to best mislead him, then—

“Sir.”

Maiza spoke at last and raised his eyes. He was as pale as death, his face solemn. Molsa turned kind, curious eyes towards him, but the patience in his gaze was lost on Maiza.

“I don’t believe it is wise to spread immortality any further than it has already reached, and I request permission to explain why.”

“Certainly,” Molsa answered.

“When I was young, I was an alchemist. We sought only to expand the limits of what was possible for man, so we summoned a demon and asked him to grant us immortality.”

Molsa’s eyes flicked over to Ronny, who answered his conclusion with a brief, tight smile; but then Ronny looked back at Maiza. This was his story to tell.

“We made this request without truly understanding what it meant to be immortal. Before a century is over, you begin to lose everyone who ever mattered to you. By a century and a half, you start to realize that you’ve left your own humanity behind as well. It is no blessing to live forever.” He swallowed hard and wet his lips with his tongue. “If that were my only objection, sir, I would not presume to defy your request. But—there is one way for an Immortal to die, and that is what makes this system truly foul and unforgivable.”

Molsa raised one eyebrow, inviting him to continue.

Maiza lifted his right hand from the table. It was shaking. “Only an Immortal can end the life of another Immortal. When we meet a companion, we may place our right hand on their head and think ‘I wish to eat.’ This action ends their life, and the ‘eater’ absorbs all knowledge and memories from the ‘eaten.’ This was introduced to us as a way to offer salvation those who have tired of eternal life, but it has not been so in practice.” His mouth twisted bitterly, but he continued. “One of the men who became immortal at my side was too greedy and began to devour our other companions against their will immediately. His first victim… was my younger brother.”

He clenched his hand into a fist and lowered it to the table once more. It occurred to Ronny that this was the first time Maiza had ever told someone this story, and privately he cursed himself for railroading his friend into the situation. No wonder he’d been angry. He had every right to be.

Maiza took a deep breath. “This immortality is a curse that turns inevitably turns friend against friend, and I cannot allow it to spread any further. I will not lie to you, Don Martillo; I do know how to produce the liquor of immortality. But I will not create it, for you or for anyone else. Though you may expel me from the Family, though you may torture me or have me killed over and over for my disobedience, my resolve is firm.” He folded his hands once more and looked back down at the table. “That’s all I have to say.”

A long silence during which Maiza did not dare to look at Molsa. Finally, Molsa cracked a wry smile.

“I’m certainly not going to thank you for saving my life by having you killed over and over, Maiza,” he said in a gentle voice. “And I don’t intend to let a valuable member such as yourself go without good reason.”

Maiza glanced up for only a split second. He still looked sick. “Yes, sir.”

“I’m very sorry about your brother.”

Maiza bowed his head further. “Thank you, sir,” he said in a faint voice.

His thoughtful eyes still resting on Maiza, Molsa addressed Ronny. “Ronny? Do you feel similarly?”

Ronny lifted his shoulders in a slight shrug. “Whether or not I agree with Maiza’s assessment, it takes a little more… _finesse_ to request the details of immortality from me, and I don’t suspect that Maiza is inclined to teach you the method. …Well, no matter.”

“Fair enough.” Molsa, too, shrugged, and at last sat back in his chair. “Then I suppose my dream of running an immortal family of gangsters will have to wait. To be fair, I’ve only had that dream for ten minutes. Easy come, easy go, eh?”

Ronny smirked in appreciation of the Don’s joke, but the levity was lost on Maiza. It seemed that he couldn’t quite believe that he was out of the woods yet. Ronny eyed him for a moment, then looked back at Molsa.

“Don Martillo, since we are—in a sense—depriving the Family of potential benefit, may I offer my own talents in exchange for the loss?”

Maiza started and lifted guilty, panicked eyes. “Ronny, that’s not—you shouldn’t have to—”

“It’s my choice, Maiza,” Ronny answered, looking his friend in the face. “You know I wouldn’t offer if I weren’t interested. Besides, it sounds entertaining.” And, with luck, it might keep Maiza from fearing that Molsa could change his mind at any moment. But no matter.

Molsa looked intrigued by the prospect. “I think I’ll take you up on that offer, Ronny,” he said. “But let’s discuss the details another time. The two of you have had a trying day that I’m afraid my prying has exacerbated. Why don’t you head home for the afternoon? I insist.”

“You’re too kind, sir.”

The offer was—Ronny could tell—more for Maiza’s sake than for his own, born out of concern for Maiza’s obvious distress as well as a faint, misguided worry that the bullet might have done some lasting damage. But Ronny would gladly take the time off as well, to address the problems he’d caused for his friend.

Once Molsa disappeared to the downstairs office, Ronny turned to Maiza and put a hand on his shoulder. Maiza raised his eyes, and Ronny sent him an embarrassed half-smile.

“So, in addition to being a capricious bastard, I am occasionally an idiot.”

Maiza looked at him in confusion for only a moment; when he caught on, his brow only furrowed further. “You didn’t realize he’d ask?”

“I didn’t think that far ahead.”

“ _Ronny_ ,” Maiza said with baffled reproach in his voice.

“Not everyone wants immortality,” Ronny insisted. “I’ve been asked for all sorts of things in the past… But no matter. I’m sorry I put you through that, Maiza.”

Maiza shook his head—first only slightly, then more firmly. “No. You’re right, it would have come out eventually. Better to have it out in the open and know that Molsa is on our side.”

“Yes. And he _is_ on our side,” Ronny said, to make sure that Maiza believed it.

Maiza inhaled deeply and sighed. “Yes,” he said, subdued. “It seems that he is.”

For a moment, the two men sat in silence. Then Maiza lifted his weary body out of the chair and looked towards the restaurant’s entrance. “I suppose I’d better go home…”

“Maiza,” Ronny said, and Maiza looked at him. “Come over to my place for a drink. It’s the least I can do.”

Maiza raised one eyebrow, perhaps a little more sardonic than he’d been a moment ago. “The least you can do to keep me from sulking by myself all afternoon, you mean?”

“Yes, that’s exactly what I mean.” No point in denying it.

Maiza weighed the offer for a long moment. Then an uncertain smile made its way onto his face. “I suppose having a drink does sound like a bit more fun than sitting alone,” he confessed, and so Ronny was forgiven.

They bought sandwiches from a street vendor on the way, but other than that, the walk to Ronny’s apartment was silent. They were silent, too, as Ronny mixed up a pair of gin and tonics to ward off the summer heat, and silent when he set the glasses on the table and the two ate their sandwiches. For once, Ronny made a rather concerted effort not to pry, so he wasn’t sure what worries were passing through Maiza’s mind.

It was clear, though, that he was still deep in thought, and it made time for Ronny’s mind to wander too. He wondered how Molsa’s trust would affect Maiza in the future. It was no trouble to be Maiza’s sole confidant, but the isolation was self-reinforcing. The longer Maiza spent trusting only in Ronny, the stronger his subconscious belief that only Ronny could be trusted grew. And humans were not meant to be so alone.

The Martillos had caught Ronny’s interest before they caught Maiza’s. In fact, he probably would have considered spending some time with them even had he not had Maiza to look after; their convivial irreverence and their understated competence reminded Ronny of his first friends, the alchemists who had created him. But it was no sin to think that that atmosphere would do Maiza good. So he had suggested becoming involved, and suggested it a second time after Maiza brushed the first attempt off. And a third. By the fourth time, Maiza had picked up on Ronny’s intention to be stubborn about this and given in.

And now here they were. At this precise second, Maiza was ill at ease, but only (in a roundabout way) because he had been the one to take a bullet for Molsa; by and large, he enjoyed the time he spent with the Martillos just like Ronny did. And Ronny suspected that his comfort with the Family would only grow once he internalized the knowledge that Molsa could be trusted with the secrets he had revealed today.

“All’s well that ends well” so rarely applied in the lives of Immortals—for what defined an ending when one had eternal life?—but for the time being, Ronny suspected that it would hold true.

And yet Maiza still sighed as he finished his sandwich.

Well, that was fair, too; the conversation with Molsa had worn him out, unsurprisingly. Immortality was a heavy burden to Maiza. The way he’d spoken about it today had made that clearer than ever. Uncomfortably clear, even, if it were something that Ronny would ever consider being uncomfortable about.

Ronny raised his glass, considering Maiza and his own question; then, over the rim of the glass, he remarked, “Foul and unforgivable, hm? And a curse on top of that,” and took a sip.

Maiza looked back at him, trying to read his face. When his face proved unreadable, Maiza sighed. “Does it surprise you to know that I feel that way? I thought I’d been fairly explicit about it.”

“No, it wasn’t a surprise. You have good reason for it. I was just a little surprised that you insulted immortality so thoroughly right after revealing to Molsa that I was the one who gave it to you. While I was sitting right there, even. I felt dreadfully self-conscious.”

Maiza raised an eyebrow, not believing that for a second.

“No? Then what if I claimed that I might take offense at it?”

“Do you?” Maiza asked, only a touch less skeptical.

Ronny let loose the smirk he’d been hiding. “No.”

“I didn’t think so,” Maiza said with a roll of his eyes. He was beginning to cheer up, and so Ronny spoke freely.

“Truthfully, I might have when I was younger. It took work to develop the method, and I was building on the efforts of someone I admired, who did not live to see it completed. The idea of devouring—that Immortals should be able to turn to their companions if they tired of eternal life—was his, and I call it a gift because he did.”

In fact, Ronny’s master and creator had called the idea a concession to Ronny _specifically_ : to the ennui that had once driven the homunculus to wish for death. And so Ronny had been sure to incorporate that element into the first contract, out of respect for his creator and for any future Immortals who might find themselves similarly bored.

But Maiza didn’t want to know that. His interest was in Ronny as he was _now_ , not as a product of alchemy. Even hearing about the development of immortality seemed to make him uncomfortable; he looked down and fiddled with his glass. So Ronny shifted the subject a little.

“I will admit, though, that things have not exactly played out as I meant them to. I mean it when I say that you shouldn’t blame yourself for that night; your group may have been uniquely quick to turn on yourselves, but… they all do, in the end.”

For just a moment, he closed his physical eyes and cast his gaze over the scope of the Earth, the Immortals standing out to him as though they were lit beacons. Their number was four fewer than the last time he had checked, and he grasped the circumstances of their devouring instantaneously: one willing, and three unwilling. One of the unlucky three had been a member of the Advena Avis group, caught by Szilard; the other two were Majeedah Batutah’s students, the devourer of the first devoured in turn by Majeedah when she discovered the betrayal. She tended to keep a careful eye and a tight rein on her protégés, and this meant that most of the alchemists who had gained immortality with her were either still alive or had been eaten by their own request. But even in her group, there were exceptions.

Ronny opened his eyes again. He reached for his glass and tilted it gently, shifting the ice within it.  “It is not what I expected,” he confessed. “When an Immortal first raised a hand against his companion, I thought it was a fluke. That was naive of me. Since then, almost four-fifths of the Immortals who have been devoured were not willing. …Well, no matter.”

He took another sip of his drink. When he lowered his glass, he was surprised to see that Maiza was watching him with furrowed brow.

“Ronny…”

“Hm?”

“Does it bother you?”

Ronny frowned slightly at the unexpected question, giving his head a little shake. “I don’t need sympathy from you for this, Maiza,” he said, and replaced his frown with a crooked, mirthless smirk. “It’s a system that I created, and the consequences have been, proportionally speaking, less for me than for you. It’s unfair of me to bring it up to you at all.”

“No—Ronny.” Maiza’s eyes were serious. “I didn’t know it bothered you. I thought—I don’t know what I thought.”

“That I simply chalked it up to human greed and moved on?” Ronny suggested.

Maiza gave an apologetic smile. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. It’s what I’ve told you. And I never said that it bothered me.”

Ronny felt off-kilter. His usual detached confidence didn’t seem to match the questions Maiza was asking him or—and here was the crux of the matter—the squirming, uncomfortable emotions they evoked in him. He gave a short smile and a dismissive wave of his hand.

“You, of all people, shouldn’t have to comfort me for this, Maiza. Pay it no mind.”

But the former alchemist was persistent. “Do you _need_ comforting?” he asked gingerly.

“No,” Ronny scoffed instinctively. But Maiza’s gaze didn’t leave him, and he found it strangely hard to meet. He lowered his eyes to the table, picking at a splinter in the table that helpfully presented itself for that exact purpose. “I don’t need comforting,” he insisted. “I only feel… strange.”

“Strange as in bad?”

“Not _guilty_ ,” Ronny said, and sent a swift glance Maiza’s way. He couldn’t allow Maiza to misunderstand _that_ and extend a sympathy that Ronny hadn’t earned. He was no more inclined to bear the blame for the way Immortals betrayed each other than he had ever been. “Dissatisfied, perhaps, if you insist on digging.” He closed his eyes, his mouth pinching in a slight frown. “It was unintentional on my part for all of you to go after each other with quite the verve you’ve settled on. Would you believe me if I told you that it truly was only meant to be an out for those who tired of living?”

There was an extended silence. Ronny opened his eyes to look at Maiza, who was gazing back with a pained smile on his face. Seeing that Ronny was awaiting an answer, Maiza shrugged awkwardly. “I don’t believe that you’d lie,” he said.

“But you can’t imagine how it’s the truth, either.”

“I realized the risk I’d taken on as soon as one of my companions first looked at me askance. The risk we’d _all_ taken on,” Maiza said, and left unspoken the question of how Ronny could have failed to realize the same.

Ronny shrugged. “I recognized that the risk existed; I just failed to calculate how high it was. I didn’t realize just how greedy humans can be…” He sighed. “Perhaps I should have. Certainly it would have made things very different—and not just for your group. The Advena Avis Immortals are singular only in respect to how quickly you turned to self-destruction. It happens time and time again. Every time I look, there seems to be a new betrayal to discover.”

Maiza’s brow furrowed. “I can’t begin to imagine how frustrating—”

“Stop, Maiza,” Ronny cut in forcefully. “I haven’t earned your sympathy. I could change this. With a snap of my fingers, I could make it so that only the willing could be devoured. But I won’t. I’ve asked myself for a thousand years if I should, but I never do it.”

Maiza sat with his face carefully devoid of judgment. “Why?” he asked. The natural question. Ronny shook his head.

“We shouldn’t be having this conversation. This isn’t something you have to solve for me.”

“I know,” Maiza said evenly. “I’m not trying to. It’s just that… you said you haven’t earned my sympathy, Ronny, but you have. Because you’re my friend. If this is something that bothers you… well, aren’t you always telling me it’s better to talk about things rather than sulking by oneself? Isn’t that why I’m here right now?”

“You’re here because I was cruel to you back at the office and I wanted to make it up to you with some distractingly lighthearted chatter. This is not that.”

“I’m here because you’re my friend and you were concerned for me.” He shrugged, his lips quirking up in a strange smile. “If you want to kick me out, I’ll go, but I did appreciate the invitation to come over.”

“I’m not kicking you out,” Ronny snapped. “That would defeat the purpose just as thoroughly as continuing this conversation would. You asked me why I don’t change the rules concerning devouring. Do you really think I have an answer for you that I can justify against the death of your brother?”

It was harsher—more pointed—than it needed to be, with the aim of dissuading Maiza from the conversation for good. And it almost seemed to, for a second. Maiza winced, his smile more like a grimace for a moment. But then he sighed and adjusted his glasses.

“I trust that you have a reason that makes sense to you, Ronny,” he said, almost infuriatingly composed. “Or else why would you refrain from doing so, even when watching us Immortals betray each other clearly troubles you?”

“It doesn’t trouble me!” Ronny insisted. “It just—”

But for all his near-omniscience, he didn’t know how he wanted to end the sentence. He didn’t know how to phrase what he was feeling. He had always been his own blind spot, since the moment he left his flask, and he suddenly felt like he was young again, railing indignantly against his creator and the mere suggestion that he should ever be subject to a human sentimentality.

He wasn’t being rational.

Taking a deep breath, he analyzed all the factors that defined his current mental state, decided which ones were worthwhile. The tension he felt didn’t seem inclined to disappear, so after a long sigh, he looked Maiza in the eye and reversed his previous statement.

“Fine,” he confessed, “It does trouble me, on some level. I don’t mean to set each new group of Immortals against each other, but I don’t seem to be able to avoid it. Not without changing the rules, which seems… dishonest.”

“Dishonest?” Maiza inquired. “You mean because they were established one way.”

“No, that isn’t it. I don’t care about that at all, to be frank.” He’d offered to let the occasional Immortal out of the arrangement, after all; caprice had never been something he objected to. “It’s just… dishonest about the way humans are. Your personalities and tendencies would remain the same even if I changed the rules. It’s not my job to impose a moral leash or pass moral judgment.”

“ _Are_ you judging us?”

“No. Judging would require me to care,” he said with his normal cavalier air, and then reconsidered. “…Which we’ve just established I do, I suppose. I mean that it would require me to _spend time_ caring, and that, I think, I would prefer to avoid.”

“Ahh, I see,” Maiza said, and by the way his eyebrow curved, he clearly _saw_ something beyond what Ronny had said aloud.

“What?”

“You want to avoid thinking about the subject.”

“Yes.” Ronny frowned. “Is there something wrong with that?”

“No, not at all. It’s a very natural way to respond to painful thoughts—even if it’s the opposite of what I usually do.” Maiza’s lips curled in a wry smile. “It’s also very… very human, Ronny.”

“And that amuses you.”

Maiza shrugged. “I wouldn’t say it amuses me; it just seems very _you_ , and yet also surprising. I wasn’t expecting to discover this side of you.”

Ronny scoffed quietly. He picked up his glass, the ice in it melted just enough to allow him another sip. “Well, no matter,” he murmured.

They fell into silence again, but this time it seemed like Maiza was the one leaving Ronny to his thoughts rather than the reverse. And so, Ronny cast his gaze out the window at the clear blue sky above and thought. About frustration. About the disappointment of discovering, again and again, that humans in aggregate could not seem to live up to the standards set by the noblest among them, and hardly seemed to try. Still, he didn’t see why he should care.

Or maybe he did. His first friends, the alchemists who had created him, had not been a particularly upstanding lot of humans. Not at all. No, they had been flighty and arbitrary, and selfish in the way of those who believed they could challenge and change the laws of nature. If they had been successful in finding a path to immortality—rather than passing on and leaving the task in their creation’s hands—would they, too, have betrayed each other in the end? Ronny didn’t want to think so. He couldn’t bring himself to identify, out of all his friends, who would have been the most likely to turn on the others and infect the whole merry group with paranoia. He didn’t think any of them would have. But two thousand years of experience seemed to suggest otherwise, no matter how long he hoped for a counterexample to appear.

He thought back to the conversation with Molsa, to Maiza’s trembling, resolute determination not to tell Molsa how to brew the liquor of immortality, and he sighed deeply.

“You know, Maiza,” he said, not looking at the former alchemist and instead looking once more into the bottom of his glass, “I think I’m glad you didn’t tell the Don how to make everyone immortal. They’re so companionable as they are; I would hate to see that interrupted by something as superfluous as immortal life.”

“I agree,” Maiza said quietly.

“I am sorry I put you in that position.”

A wry smile. “Are you going to think it through a bit more next time, perhaps?”

“Oh, absolutely. I’m not likely to forget today’s events anytime soon—our conversation with Molsa _or_ the little chat we just had now.” Ronny raised his eyes. There was gratitude hovering on his tongue, and something more—a feeling of safety, and a deeper fondness than he had ever felt before. Something that was yet too formless and unfamiliar to voice. So instead he said, “Don’t worry; for all that I’m almost omniscient to begin with, I _am_ capable of learning from experience. I’ll keep all of this in mind for the future.”

“That’s all I ask,” Maiza said with a smile. Then he lifted his glass and offered it to Ronny. “That, and maybe a second gin & tonic? If you don’t mind my sticking around for a little longer.”

“Certainly. That’s even easier,” Ronny remarked. With a thought, he refilled the glass and fitted a fresh lime slice onto the rim.

“…Show off.” Maiza took a sip, then snorted. “And of course it’s perfect.”

Ronny nodded affably. “Naturally. I would never offer you anything less than the best.” He lifted his own replenished glass to his lips. Over its rim, he confessed, “I am very glad for your friendship, Maiza.”

“And I for yours.”

They clinked their glasses together in an unspoken toast; then they sat back in their chairs to watch the clouds go by outside.


End file.
